A Food Blog with Personality

Cooking From: Duck & Pineapple Tacos (Delicious Magazine)

Is it cheating, using a magazine as part of this cookery book series? Probably, but this recipe was too good not to share! We recently switched from subscribing to BBC GoodFood to Delicious magazine, and I have to say I’m really glad we did. We’d been unimpressed with GoodFood for a few months, finding the recipes a bit repetitive and predictable – and the ones we did try often didn’t work out so well. Since switching we’ve constantly found many recipes each month we’d like to make, and all of them have worked. Several of them have even been recooked, which is high, high praise in our house!

This is one such recipe. We’ve been loving Mexican flavours lately, whether it’s complex layers of flavour from authentic Pork Pibil Tacos, to cheats Fish Tacos made with Fish Fingers. These Duck Tacos are equally as good.

The duck legs are slow roasted in a mix of pineapple and chipotle, before being shredded and piled into tacos with a creamy yet spicy dressing. They are then topped with a tangy, fresh salsa of pineapple, red onion and chilli. It’s sweet, it’s hot, there’s crunch, there’s softness. The combination of flavours and textures in this dish is insanely good, and far superior than the effort required to put it together. I can imagine this would make a great informal supper party dish!

We’ve edited the recipe slightly, adding a little onion to the duck to (1) bulk it out a little and (2) had an additional level of flavour. We’ve simplified the creamy dressing, as we don’t tend to have mayonnaise on hand. We’ve added garlic, because why not. Oh, and whilst we usually leave out the avocado from the original I can imagine it would be delicious with it. And finally, we’ve used pre-prepared pineapple. Yes it’s more expensive, but it reduced the risk of me slicing my hand off, and I also tend to get sore hands if I handle the fruit. You can, of course, use a small pineapple here instead!

Recipe (serves 2, easily scaled up)

1 duck leg

1 white onion, sliced

1 medium pack of prepared pineapple, 2/3 for the duck and 1/3 for the salsa

75ml tequila or pisco

75ml chicken stock

2 tsp chipotle paste

Pinch of dried chilli flakes

For the salsa – 1 red onion, 1 red chilli, bunch fresh coriander (all three should be chopped) and 1/2 lime (zest and juice, serve with the remaining half)

For the chipotle sauce – 4 tbsp soured cream and 1 tsp chipotle paste

4 soft tortillas, to serve

Heat a casserole dish over a medium heat, then add the duck legs (skin side down) and fry for 5 minutes until brown. Add the onion slices and fry briefly until softened. Blitz two-thirds of the pineapple in a blender (I used my mini-chopper) with the tequila, stock, chipotle paste, chilli flakes and salt/pepper to make a smooth sauce, then add to the duck. Put in the oven and cook at 160C for around 2 hours. Once done, shred the duck meat and add back to the sauce (discarding any bones and non-crisp skin).

For the pineapple salsa, finely dice the leftover pineapple and put in a bowl with the chopped red onion, lime zest, chillies and coriander. Add the juice of ½ lime, season and set aside. To make the chipotle sauce, mix together the soured cream and chipotle paste.

To serve, warm the tortillas (I use either a microwave or dry frying pan). Serve everything in small bowls, and assemble your tacos with the sauce, duck and salsa. Squeeze over a little extra lime before serving. Yum!